Thursday, April 15, 2010

Rant about multiplayer functionality

I got a hold of WWE Legends of Wrestlemania for 360, mainly for the nostalgia factor as I was 9 years oldback in the days of the first Wrestlemania.It's the first wrestling game I've played probably since the days of NES and I have to say it was good laughs reliving the gripping drama of Hulk Hogan vs King Kong Bundy in Wrestlemania 2--basically the 9/11 of my young life (for lack of a better metaphor).I promptly tell my buddy to get the game, so we can beat the pants out of each other. He doesn't even need to know the theme of the game, he's down with trading beat downs online any day.We're playing and we couldn't help but be totally annoyed by the fact that after a match was over you had to exit out, set the next match up all over again, and re-invite each other to play. It was ridiculous--it felt like we spent more time setting up matches than we did playing the game. Suffice it to say we're returning the game to Gamefly sooner than later.No matter what kind of game it is, a ''rematch now'' functionality should be built in to every multiplayer game. Every game should have a lobby where you and your opponent(s) are still together, and you can make some quick changes to the game if you wish, and jump right back in.You can kind of tell that they didn't spend a whole lot of time refining this WWE game anyways, which is a total shame and frankily it reflects badly on the franchise. Low quality video game =low quality World Wrestling Entertainment.An example of a superior multiplayer experience is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and World at War. Those two games totally totally bring it as far as multiplayer goes and that's a big part of their success.It's often on Gamespot these days you read about a game publisher going out of business. I think it's a good thing because too many studios are putting out a substandard product and I'm sick of wasting my time on them. That's also why I'll only rent games and almost never buy.Maybe someone in charge of a game studio will read this and catch a hint of what a mature gaming audience is looking for. We're increasingly stuck at home with our wives and kids and need awesome multiplayer games to hang out with our buddies.Thanks for reading.

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